


Crows All The Way Down

by Angstyfandom_happyending



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Anushka doesn't know what to do, Apocalypse, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Blood and Gore, Character Death, Dreams and Nightmares, Gen, How Do I Tag, Hurt/Comfort, Indian Character, Indian setting, Kolkata, Lily is grumpy, Mindfuck, Mythology - Freeform, Original Character(s), Parallel Universes, Psychological Trauma, Riza just about had enough with everyone, Self-Discovery, Urban Fantasy, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-04-24 17:09:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19177735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angstyfandom_happyending/pseuds/Angstyfandom_happyending
Summary: Riza doesn't remember much about what happened before she woke up on a late morning. Her memories recall coming across a wounded crow and a strange man but nothing else. She can't help but to feel a peculiar sort of dread though.However, her worse nightmares are going to come true when she realizes that the world around her has changed without her knowing and everything has gone crazy. With the help of a man who calls himself a god and a teenager with a talking giant scaly cat, can Riza find her brother before it's too late?





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> So, hi.  
> To anyone who chose to read this, it is my first ever attempt at writing something truly serious. I've been inspired by a LOT of my personal fandoms, and have drawn things from experiences that have occured in my life.
> 
> To those who are squeamish about blood and gore, there are a lot of it. And going forward there will be stuffs that might be sensitive for some people. I'll try adding those warnings at the beginning of each chapters but I'll caution you to read caring for your own mental health. It is very important. 
> 
> And all and any mistakes you'll find here are completely mine. I'll try to fix it as much as i can and since English isn't my first language, i do beg your pardon from the start.
> 
> It might not make sense at first but if you choose to stick around this story, i hope you'll find the answers you're looking for!!

THINGS HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT

***********

 

 

I sprang up, immediately gasping at the sharp pain that shot through my arms. There were shards of white ceramic sticking out from my palms and forearms. My back ached and my head felt heavy.

  
What the fuck happened?

  
The tele was still on and turned to the highest volume, screaming about some studio adapting a superhero into a live action movie. I floundered for the remote that was lying a few feet away from me, I switched it off.

  
Looking around in alarm as I recalled the stranger who had broken into my apartment, I noticed that he wasn’t in the kitchen. Everything around me seemed to be untouched. Groaning at the fiery sensation that wrecked me when I moved, I inspected myself carefully, dread settling heavy at the bottom of my stomach. Everything felt surreal. It almost felt as if I was watching things through a screen or something.

My arms felt sluggish and even the slightest movement was proving to be difficult. How hard did I hit the floor? And what was I doing on the floor? Why did it feel like I was missing something?

  
Though there was blood from all the cuts on my hands and a few scratches around my toes, I was relieved to find that nothing else happened.  
Slowly I stood, grabbing the edge of the table and pulling myself up. A spell of dizziness made my sight blurry for a moment and I stumbled toward the nearest wall to support myself. Why did I feel so drained? Was it because of all the blood I lost? Or maybe it was because I was losing my mind.  
When I felt like I could take a step without face planting the floor, I grabbed hold of a knife from the counter and made my way through the house. I checked the bathroom, the small attic above the doorway and finally entered the bedroom trying to be as quiet as I could.

  
My eyes went wide when I saw that the man from the previous night (or was it still night?) spread over the bed lying completely still. My hopes of being insane flew out of the window with a shriek and I trembled. What should I do? Call the police? Yes, of course! That’s what I ought to do. I can’t possibly think of defending myself against this man. What the fuck is wrong with my brain?

  
I looked around myself trying to find the phone. The man was still possibly asleep. I didn’t turn my back on him and instead tiptoed back towards the kitchen where I must have dropped the phone. The knife was secured in my hand though I could see detachedly that it was shaking. I kept my eyes on him when I find the phone near the leg of the table. I picked it up and tried to get it back on but it didn’t work. The useless thing had gone dead on me.

  
“Shit.” I muttered.

  
Gripped by a sudden impulse to run, I darted across the small doorway and flung myself on the door. I rattled the door knob, jerked it, twisted it, slammed my weight against the damn thing but it wouldn’t budge. The door wasn’t locked and it wasn’t as if it was made with good fucking wood. The old thing was a cautionary tale that I had been saving up to replace and fix but now it just wouldn’t open. I banged my fists on the door and kicked. I yelled for Mrs. Mukherjee to call the police or to call someone to help me. Just for anyone to help me.

  
No response.

  
I plunged the knife at the door but the blade came away and fell to the floor.

  
For a moment I stood there : my hair messy and sticky from blood and my snot, my face wet and my entire form shaking. I stood there staring at the goddamn knife – the only one I had in my kitchen – and lost it.

  
I banged and screamed and kicked at the door like some rabid animal hoping that someone surely would hear me and come looking. I didn’t realise when I made my wounds worse. The tangy smell of blood wafted through my nose and I gagged.  
What was happening? Why couldn’t anyone hear me? What was happening here?

  
The hairs on my back stood on its ends and I whirled around clutching the phone in my hand.

  
The man stood outside the bedroom. His features were hidden beneath the cascade of dark hair that were tangled in knots. His shoulders drooped slightly, as if he were slouching. He was tall, far taller than me and built with more muscles than I had hidden away in my folds. He stood still with his arms hanging loosely and the tattoos on his chest seemed to be fading.

  
When he noticed that I had temporarily ceased my bout of mental breakdown he simply said, “I’m afraid you can’t leave this room.”

  
I chucked the phone at the man.

  
He didn't move away and the phone hit him in the chest.

  
And then he sighed. With it, everything disappeared.  
Every. Single. Thing.

  
Even the peeling off greenish wallpaper vanished.

  
I fell back, shuffling away from him as far as I could.  
“ _Who the fuck are you!_ ” I was not proud of how my voice squeaked but it was better than nothing.  
His flat expression twitched and in its place a mild look of annoyance flickered. I quickly grappled for anything that I could find with which I could attack this man.

  
“That was not very smart of you.”

  
If I had any shoes I’d throw them too at this impossible guy. Was he delusional?!

  
“Get out of my house or I'm going to scream!”

  
“Ah, so that was you. “

  
He began walking towards me and the air around us suddenly became heavy. Instinct frantically scratched at me to runrunrunhide and an ominous sinking sensation gripped my heart. I found it hard to keep my head up and my eyes involuntarily slid away from the spectre of the man who had suddenly become darker, more alien. His controlled measure and the ease with which he now stood before me rankled something primitive in the lizard part of my brain and a fine shiver ran through me.

  
“Good. You should not mistake my leniency for tolerance. It has been eons since I could properly inhale the sunlight and my already limited threshold of benevolence is stretched to its limit. Therefore I advise you to hold your tongue and rein in your antics because I. Tire. Of. Them." The crisply enunciated words in that strange accent fell like chains holding me down. I wanted to scream but no sound came out. My throat worked tirelessly and I could almost taste the bile at the back of my tongue.

  
My body was filled with stones and bricks. Nothing moved. I helplessly stared at a spot near the man's feet with every single bone inside me protesting.

  
“To begin with, I thank you for the blood you shed on my behalf. I could change my form because of that, and therefore I am grateful. As a mark of my good faith, I shall not consume you as I need to and instead, extend a proposition to you. I require you to worship me like you would the sun for its light and the rivers for their life. I require you to worship me as you would your lord and your leader. I require you to see me as I have seen you. And in return, you get to ask of me one thing you desire the most. I shall grant it. And because I am feeling merciful, I will grant your wish before my own need is fulfilled. Do you understand?”

  
My head moved without my permission, tilting back and staring into a pair of deep brown eyes.  
Bile was now more of a reality than anything else happening at this moment.

  
Fingers ghosted near my cheeks as I was forced to gaze back at the unrelenting and creepy eyes of the man. I tried to memorize the make of his face if I ever get to survive this freaking ordeal which I was losing hope on rapidly.

  
“Tell me Riza. What do you want? What is it that you desire when you close your eyes and let yourself lose? Let me see.” He whispered yet his words thrummed with something more. Though I couldn’t avert my eyes, from my periphery I could see flashes of darkness, swirling and melting into shadows and silhouettes. A droning noise filled my head like wool threatening to drown the screaming person in there.  
The man's features became irrelevant. The only thing important, that which held my entirety of existence were those eyes. I was losing myself in them. They were so bright and warm. Tinted yellow like the ends of an afternoon in my childhood that I had left behind. It smelled of the grasses in which we played, soft and lush. I saw them : the family that I’d abandoned, the friends that I’d shut out; I saw them all. They laughed amidst the flecks of gold and green in the shade of the warmest brown. I didn’t want to go back to the cold green of my apartment. If I could just stay here, with these people that I loved but had simply forgotten to remember, if I just have to say yes—

 

  
The sensation of warmth trailing down my eye made me woozy. I fought to get a grip over myself but I just couldn’t understand what was going on. I was probably running late for the bus. Again. I had to get up and take a bath. I had to get up – “Now, you are a delight.” An amused voice rasped closer to my ears.  
I could make out what seemed like a host of – no, a murder of crows spinning uncontrollably into a vortex around us. Feathers and beaks bled into each other and a whirlpool of black and light surrounded us.

  
I tried to flinch away but couldn’t.

  
“Interesting. Hmm, this calls for a slight alteration.”  
Suddenly there was my brother glitching inside the spinning vortex, looking around in confusion with a bowl of noodles in his hands.

  
He had the beginnings of a moustache, that was the first thing I noted followed soon by the improbability of his being here.

  
The pressure that had been around my throat disappeared and I broke out into coughs. I spat out the bile from my mouth and tried to catch my breath.  
Out of the sound of hundreds of wings flapping together simultaneously and in a symphony, I could barely hear my brother remarking, “Ugh, Di.”

  
I tried to crawl towards my brother but found that only my throat worked. I managed to get out his name before blunt protruding sprang from his front. He looked just as gobsmacked as I did. The bowl fell, scattering its contents. And then he sprayed blood all over my face and I screamed.

  
The antlers kept on growing out of my baby brother’s chest and stomach, spilling his blood and insides as he was gorged on the thick and impossibly large tines of the antlers.

  
My eyes burned with how wide I forced them to open, my throat felt raw and i could taste blood under my tongue, unsure of whose it was.

  
My hands suddenly jerked out towards my brother trying to pick up the entrails that should be inside him. I slipped on the blood that was thick and gritty under my nails. I stared at how black it shone and tried to reconcile it with the wet, trailing gasps of my brother as he was now mounted on the pair of antlers that seemed to carry the sky overhead.  
“...op, stop, Stop, _STOP, STOPSTOPSTOPSTOP_ \--"

  
A smoke made of thunder, dirt and oaths spoke, “Say yes.”

  
“ _YES_! YESYESYESYES...please, yes. Please. My brother – please. Stop, my brother, please.”

  
Wings like blades and petrichor washed over me. I gasped as I was eclipsed by light so white that licked out the darkness even when I shut my eyes and the mangled neck of the crow that I had found in the morning surfaced in my mind.

 

  
I should have crushed its head.


	2. Worthy

Never in my life had I ever experienced a need so strong to throttle someone as I was now.

  
The man had taken over my bedroom. He didn’t get up from the bed neither did he do anything other than sleeping and snoring up a storm. I tried calling the police on him but my phone always mysteriously crashed at that particular moment. I tried snapping his picture to show it to the police station as someone I didn’t know was actually living there in my apartment but I was treated just as ceremoniously as I was when I had first ran up to them stinking and snotty , shortly after I recovered from the nightmare. Or something.

  
Everything after I fainted (with the thing that I did with my hands my god what was I trying to do?) was unclear. I could recall only snippets of some conversation that we had which only gave me a vague sense of apprehension and confusion. I remembered screeching yes to something but whenever I tried to recall anything else it all just got more confusing. As if trying to look inside water. The entire ordeal was particularly baffling because no matter how many times I tried to remember it only left me with this profound sense of misery and dread.

  
My brother texted me the other day asking if I was okay because he just had the weirdest day dream while eating breakfast.

  
I tried telling him about the man and my situation but my fingers didn't cooperate with me and shot off a generic text as if they had a mind of their own.  
I had never felt this out of control.

  
Needless to say I was boiling with rage.

  
My mind still couldn’t comprehend the shit that was going on but I refused to lie to myself about this.   
Something was very wrong with me and that man was to be blamed.

  
Apart from feeling that I had ran a marathon every hour, I was continuously tensed and irritated. It reflected badly on my work because I got called in by the boss in the past couple of days more times than the five years that I had been working there were to be compiled. I became more territorial about my seats in metros and busses and I had literally snarled at a lady today while coming home who tried to push me away from the seat in the metro for which I had been waiting for thirteen minutes.

  
Everyday I returned home hoping to see the man gone along with the hand me down furniture but he was an ever present entity stuck to my bed. Like all the other days, I walked straight into the kitchen, ran the tap and filled a big whisking bowl with cold December water. Then I took it inside the bedroom and poured it over his head with, just as usual, no response.

  
This had become a part of my new routine and if it were not for his snoring and the fact that he weighed a tonne, I would have dumped his body outside in the vat, police be damned. The only saving grace in this absurd situation that my mind could think of was the lack of shit that I had to deal with on top of everything. The man basically didn’t poop, or pee, or even puked. It was as if the body stuck to my bed like a leech on the cheek was just a mannequin with incredibly accurate details.

  
I sighed and pressed the bridge of my nose. I had so many documents that I had to check through and not to mention the extra toppings of folders that my boss told me to take home. I was supposed to be a call operator attending calls and trying to sale the shit products that they pumped out of hell, not maintain their sales records as well and manage the annual reports!

  
I opened the closet and brought out my sleeping pyjamas. I threw a cautionary glance at the still sleeping figure and drifted to the bathroom.  
After washing away the day's stress I padded over to the small reclining chair in front of the window outside the kitchen with my laptop and the bag full of papers and began to do my work.

  
It was not until the rumble in my stomach became audible that I cracked my neck and popped some knuckles. Keeping my things on the table I stood up and made my way to the fridge, thinking of what I could make. There wasn’t anything particularly of note inside there and I had to add a reminder in my phone to go to the market tomorrow. But for now I thought of making some egg scramble from the two eggs and a quarter of butter that was left in there. I shut the door of the fridge and turned around to take the pan out of the cupboard. Clicking the gas on I kept the pan on it and turned, coming face to face with a broad chest.

  
I gasped and grabbed the pan, bringing it smack on the man's head.

  
The eggs splattered on the floor and I briefly agonized over the pain of wasting my only source of food at nearly 3’o clock in the .morning but was soon brought out of it by a loud sigh.

  
The man --who looked surprisingly cleaner than before—had wrapped my bed sheet around his waist, a part of it dragging behind him and his hair wasn’t all matted and looking like a homeless person's but brushed and shiny, falling down his shoulders in small earthen waves.

  
“I'm sorry.” Was out of my mouth even before I could register the fact that he had bent my frying pan.

  
The man cocked a brow and looked around , his eyes darting from every object inside the room and then falling over to me. That gaze made my breath hitch out of fear. There was something very uncanny and familiar about them. And oddly, he looked thinner than he usually did. Nausea slowly crept into my mouth and I turned away, looking for a cloth to clean the mess up.

  
“Making food? Great! I am famished.”

  
I stopped on my track and sent an incredulous glare at him.

  
“ _Excuse me_?! What do you mean by ‘famished'? Like – what- do you expect me to feed _you_?”

  
The man cocked his brow again which was too arrogant and at the same time oddly elegant for a shrug. “You did consent to being my apostle. And it does fall under your duty to offer your worships and offerings to the god you’ve sworn yourself to.”

  
The limit of my taking bullshit erupted and I switched off the gas and then madly swung the bent pan in front of his face, not caring if he got hurt or not.

  
“Look here you creep. I don’t care what mad shit you believe your self to be or for whatever reason you thought I was going to be a safe bet for you, you need to get the fuck out of my house or I’m going to smack the living shit out of you. God or no god.”  
I was so mad at everything that was happening around me. I was mad that I could not eat the scramble eggs that I wanted to. I was mad that I couldn’t sleep for The last three days and had to sleep on the dining table which gave me an annoying sore back. I was mad that Rai reminded me how shitty my life was even after everything I had once achieved in my past. I was mad at that lady who thought she could so rudely push me aside and take the seat that I had laboured for so long.

  
The man didn’t look alarmed though. No. If anything he looked slightly amused, his lips curling ever so slightly, so vague that I wouldn’t even have noticed if I wasn’t glaring so intently at him. He merely tilted his head just so and that simple act made my blood boil.

  
“What do you want!” I yelled.

  
He gestured to my left hand that was balled into a fist so hard that my half eaten nails were digging into my palm. I frowned and refused to take my eyes off him.

  
“What.” I demanded.

  
A weird sensation bloomed onto my skin. I brought my hand forward to check and there, on the inside of my elbow was a slight discoloration. The skin around here looked oddly pink and washed out, as if it had been rubbed vigorously. I stared at the spot and realised that the mark looked very similar to a feather.

  
“What the hell.” I muttered looking at the mark that now glowed faintly red. The man was now leaning against the opposite counter, fondling with a black plastic spoon. I didn’t know why but that spoon looked like a weapon in his hands even if he did nothing with it.

  
“Are you going to listen if I attempt to explain the situation at--" he paused and turned his head towards the window outside the kitchen, a blank expression coming over his face. Distantly, I noticed how sharp his cheekbones were. He then turned back to me with a half smile playing at the corner of his lips, his eyes catching the yellow light of the kitchen and setting them ablaze with a gleam that spoke of nothing good. He leaned away from the counter and sauntered towards the doorway. He stretched his arm, covered densely with tattoos that seemed to writhe and twist on his skin and out of thin air, summoned – literally summoned a throne made of suspicious looking objects and sprawled over it easily. He brought a single long forefinger up to his chin as his arm rested on the armrest.

  
“I do understand how confounding it all must be to you. And I will be honest and admit that I did not make it very elucidating for you. And though you are somewhat of a necessity, at least until I recover fully, I will have to see if you truly are as worthy as my Mother thinks you are. It is very convenient that I be presented with that opportunity so easily now. Mother must be growing soft.” He well and truly smirked, and it sent chills down my spine. “Riza, won’t you prove to me how worthy you are to be my one and only apostle in this age?”

  
I was gearing up to spew flames and spit at the balls of this man but a loud roar and the glasses of my window shattering sent me aback. I fell on my butt , covering my face with my arms as the splinters of the glass scattered everywhere.

  
I only had a second to draw in a breath when something came speeding at me in a blur of flashing colours and I just managed to dodge out of its way. My shoulders bumped into the gas stove and I cursed, holding onto the pan tightly. Blood curdling snarls froze me in my tracks. My mind raced with improbable scenarios of what could produce such awful noise. But the reality was far worse than fiction.

  
I pressed myself against the wall, rattling the dishes overhead as my eyes took in the hideous form of what appeared to be the result of a purple chicken, a particularly large cat and a dog put in a mixer. It was larger than a wolf, stoutly built, its purplish skin rupturing and pulled taunt over its bones. It smelled like a body left to decompose in a sauna. Some form of liquid oozed from the open wounds on its body and the stuff had to be corrosive because the carpet where it groped started to smoke. It had a long, threatening tail that whipped to the sides. The aborted pairs of wings looked decayed and rotten. The creature lacked any eyes but its stretching maw of serrated teeth more than compensated for it.

  
“Oh my god...” I breathed out as it shook its head, sending foams of spit everywhere, shuffling its claws and digging them into the floor.

  
“It is Aeron, actually.” Came a collected voice dripping with poison sweetness and by god, I wanted to wring the man's neck but I had no time to contemplate homicides when the creature lunged at me. Its jaws opened wider than it should have been possible letting out a stench so foul that I almost fainted. I swung the pan wildly in the air as I tried to sidestep it. However I tripped over my own foot crashing on to the floor and hitting my chin though my hands absorbed most of the impact. The taste of blood immediately bloomed inside my mouth and the sound of my kitchen getting wrecked filled my ears.   
The creature let out a high pitched whine while still frothing at the mouth, its feline form prowling and pressed down to the ground. Its massive coiled tail unfurled and before I could even comprehend I let out a scream as the sharp end of its tail sliced through my chest .

  
“Jesus fucking Christ!” I grabbed the pressure cooker that had rolled over on the ground and hurled it at the thing who dodged it easily. It threw itself against me, its nails raking through my arm as pain like fire spread through my arm. I brought the pan down just when it was about to snap at my throat. It whined, shaking its head while trying to bite me again as I hit it across the face, this time managing to smack its snout. The creature quickly backed away, whimpering while pawing at its snout.

  
My heartbeat was louder than the buzz inside my head. A string of ‘this isn’t happening' poured inside my mind. I blinked a few times to clear my head and turned to the man sitting without a care in the world.

  
“ _Why are you just sitting there!_ ”

  
He cocked a eyebrow at me.   
Again.

  
First I was going to kill this hideous son of a bitch and then I’m going to kill that eyebrow cocking son of a bitch.

  
The thing came at me with me a vengeance. I tried to run away from it but it was too goddamn fast and I was not made for a fight with a creature out of some creepypasta online.

  
I watched as its crisscrossing teeth pierced through the skin of my right arm through muscles and bones and, just like a particularly morbid yet intriguing panel from a comic strip, I watched as my blood spurted out of the open wounds and dripped down its mouth. I watched as I screamed thrusting my left hand onto its snout trying to open its mouth to free my arm. I watched as more howls and snarls followed in through the window and into my small apartment.

  
The creature gave a wicked twist of its head and I heard something pop with a sickening wet crunch and this time I did gag. I suffered through a strange Deja vu and gagged some more. My entire right side was becoming numb from all the pain as the others advanced towards us with their tongues lolling out and its purple skin gleaming under the dim light.  
I squeezed my eyes shut as their footfall like thunder grew closer and my left hand finally grabbed something soft and I _pressed in._

  
A very strange thing happened as soon as I did.  
The very disconcerting sensation of embedding one’s own flesh into someone else’s flesh notwithstanding --what I could only call the feeling of someone blowing bubbles inside your ears—filled my entire being with the centre of it being my left arm. Warmth that trickled down my being soon transformed into a blazing inferno and I almost wanted to jump out my skin because I felt like i was standing outside in the sun naked in the middle of the day on the hottest May ever.

  
Everything happened in that suspended moment where I was the Schrodinger’s cat. The fire within me intensified and I had the urge of throwing up but not through my mouth but from my hand. The fingers that had dug inside the side of the faceless creature began to glow. Beams of silvery light interwoven by bursts of purple and red shot out of its body, expanding till it consumed those behind it and the bodies exploded into a confetti of dusts right at my face.

  
I coughed out the smokeless dust and tried to spit out the burnt ash taste of it from my mouth. I panted, clutching my chest and staring down at my left arm incredulously. Suddenly I saw a montage of all the superhero movies and comics that I had read growing up. I thought back to the time when Alex Summers had activated his mutant power accidentally, and felt a sort of hopeful disbelief.  
Did it mean my childhood dreams were actually true? Was I really a –

  
“Don’t look too happy about that little trick Riza. It was only a silver of my powers that you unwittingly drew from through the connection we share.”

  
I whirled around, glaring daggers at the obnoxious man still sitting cross legged at that silly throne.

  
“You absolutely arrogant prick of a bastard! What in the hell is happening over here? Who are they? Who are you? Why are you here and whose gonna pay the bills for my ruined house?” I stood defiantly before him.

  
His face was unreadable. There was no sign of the previous amusement that hung from his face and his eyes were weirdly affixed on my left arm.

  
“You are going to collapse very soon.” He said non apropos.

  
I frowned and looked down.   
Well. That was a lot of blood.

  
I swayed a bit but caught myself before falling.   
I was still a bit disoriented when suddenly I was grabbed and was confronted with his face too close for my comfort.

  
I had the urge of clawing out those brown eyes and stuffing them inside his mouth to watch his throat work while he swallowed.

  
I blinked.

  
Uh.

  
“Are you coherent?”

  
Uh. “Yeah.”

  
“It seems that I’ve attracted some unwanted inconvenience. The maras were only the beginning. They are only the harbingers. You are going to witness things that no normal human would otherwise notice. These things are not made from your nightmares. They are far worse. They are the things that haunt you when you are awake. They are the ones who come before you are even aware of your own fear. They slither into your mind and make their nest when you are lost in transient joy. They wait and bid their time. They are patient. They are beyond yours or even mines comprehension. They come from before time had any existence. They are nothing you can even begin to imagine. And you will fear them.”

  
I swallowed around the bone inside my throat. My head was beginning to feel lighter than it probably should and I belatedly realised that I had been bleeding fatally.

  
Still the intensity of those gaze kept me affixed.

  
“I fear you.” My tongue felt heavy and I wasn’t sure if I could articulate what I wanted to say but the lines around those dark eyes lightened and I noticed how long his lashes were.

  
“As you should. But trust me when I say that they will inflict a much sorry fate upon you than I ever could.”

  
That cracked me up. “Did that hurt?”

  
He hummed and revealed my marked arm whose colour was now a brilliant shade of red that I had only ever witnessed during those sunsets spent eating jhalmuri at the ghats with my friends.  
He brought his face closer to me, his eyes searing into my skin. “Watch.”

  
And then the air around me froze. I could watch little clouds forming as I huffed. His presence beside me disappeared, taking the last of the warmth with him. I frantically looked around me trying to see what new monsters we'd be facing now. I didn’t know why I believed Aeron with my safety now given that all this insanity started because of him. Nothing made sense. But I couldn’t do anything now anyways because I’ve already lost too much blood.

  
The floor in the kitchen was a bloodied mess. There’s a bloody handprint of mine on the wall against which I was leaning. My legs threatened to buckle under me but I resisted. Nothing happened apart from the drastic fall in the temperature. I strained my eyes to see clearly what was happening but there was

 

 

nothing.

  
 _Nothing_...

  
Where was Aeron? I rubbed my eyes trying to disperse the haziness that suddenly befell me.   
I tried to see my steps in front of me but they rippled as if it were an image on the surface of water. The sound of my chattering breaths was louder in the oppressive silence. Even the walls around me disappeared. I couldn’t see the ground ok which I was standing. I couldn’t even see where I began or ended. I tried to callout a name but then stopped. What was I doing? What was I trying to accomplish. I thought of stretching something in front of me to bring it close to where I could still hear breathing. But everything was directionless. It wasn’t pitch black, or even dark with smudges of colour. It wasn’t bright as well. I didn’t know what it was because it was nothing. I didn’t know what I tried to do that made me think of nothing. Nothing. Noth...

  
I  
N  
.  
G  
  
.  


.

 

.

 

 **Gasp**   
“- _za,. Riza_.”  
 **Gasp**

  
 **Gasp** _gasp gasp_ nothing **confusion**

  
Warmth

  
Gasp. Cold.

  
Nothing

  
“ _Remember, Riza_.”

  
Two children playing family on a veranda surrounded by bougainvillea trees under clear skies.  
“ _It is nothing. You have to fear it. It is nothing.”_

  
_Gasp_

  
A flash of something quick and gone.

  
Gasp _coldit'ssocoldidontwanttobesocold_

  
Clicking of hooves on cemented floor. A war trumpet echoing inside the skull. A flash, here and gone.  
It’s nothing. You’re nothing. Do you remember? Who are you?

  
No.

  
_Coldcoldcol_ **dcoldcold**

  
Fear it.

  
Who am i

  
Fear it.

  
Who am I

  
Fear it.

  
_**Who am I?** _

I regained the senses of my extremities in a jolt. My neck lolled back against the wall, heavier than an iron ball. I blinked slowly down at my arms and then at my chest. My clothes were bloodied and torn but there were no wounds. Where did they go?

  
I was still shivering badly. My teeth chattered and my joints felt swollen. It hurt to close my eyes. The routine of the feather etched across my skin was a blistering red, angry and defiant. I gawked at it and then my eyes grew wide as I tilted my head back. An obsidian shimmering shield enclosed me where I was propped against the throne. It swirled and hummed, my hairs standing on ends at the charge. I didn’t know what it was but the shield felt familiar. I brought my fingertips closer to the enclosing dome and was surprised to feel the material soft and foreign. The texture was smooth and it shifted under my hand.

  
It was only when I leaned closer to the shield that I realised the material this shield was made up of were feathers. Shiny, black feathers.

  
A loud huff accompanied by clicking of hooves caught my attention. I tried to look though the shield but could not see anything. The marks on my hand singed and I grabbed it, hissing.

  
An inhumane screech made me fall back and scramble away from the shifting dome of feathers. My bones rattled inside me from the cold and my skin burnt. Another waver of pain shot through my left arm and I curled up holding the hand close to my chest, trying to breathe around the chill that felt like knives every time I inhaled.

  
All of a sudden the world around me wrenched. The cold was sucked out along with all the wind inside, every door and windows shaking madly and then shutting themselves closed, stilling.

  
I dared not make any sound. I clutched my hand near me and waited.

  
Bare feet treading on the carpeted floor came to a stop before where I sat.

  
My breath stuck in my throat. I had nothing with me now. No weapons, no shoes or phone. I was completely defenceless.

  
The shimmering shield around me wavered and then collapsed in itself. It shrunk till it resembled more like an edgy cloak from some cosplay and flew into the hands of Aeron.

  
Aeron.

  
His eyes were the first thing that I saw. They were glowing the same shade of crimson that that mark on my hand looked like. His hair was dishevelled and he with measured carelessness, draped the cloak over himself. He stepped closer offering a hand.  
I didn’t take it.

  
“What are you?” I asked instead.

  
The red of his eyes were fading and I saw that the tattoos over his body too were slowly washing off.  
He didn’t take away his proffered hand. “You might call me a god.”

  
I didn’t look away. “Why did those things come after you? They did didn’t they.”

  
He looked at me for a long time and then slowly crouched down in front of me.

  
“They wanted to see if I truly escaped.”

  
“Escape from where?”

  
“A prison they thought would be strong enough to endure me.”

  
I swallowed dryly. “You're going to kill me.”

  
He paused. His eyes lost some of their rigidity and his features relaxed. He would almost be smiling.  
“Not yet.”

  
I turned away from him and got up on still trembling legs. There were no wounds, no blood. I did not feel broken anywhere. But I distinctly remembered the pain of it. “Did you heal me?”

  
He spread his arms as if to suggest that I could assume anything I wanted to. I frowned and threw a cautioned glance at the wreck. God. How am I ever going to begin to start paying for its repairs.

  
I started walking dejectedly toward my bedroom and paused.

  
“Thank you Aeron. For healing me. And saving me from...whatever they were at the end. Though all of it happened because of you and now my house is in ruins because of you so that kind of cancels the gratitude. But eh, you’re going to sleep in the kitchen today.”

 

  
There were no answers and I didn’t wait for one. I almost cried out of ecstasy when the soft, beloved covers of my bed dipped around me. Cracking an eye open, I realised that he never did tell me if I was worthy. I immediately concurred that it didn’t matter and spontaneously fell asleep in the comforting embrace of my bed.  
________________________________________________________________

**Author's Note:**

> Hii!  
> Please leave your feedback because I'd love to hear from you and know what your thoughts are!  
> Thanks, for reading!!!


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